Dr Carla Pereira

Professional biography

Dr Carla Pereira has joined the OU Business School (Faculty of Business and Law / Department for People and Organisations) in February 2022 as a Lecturer in Operations & Supply Chain Management. She also holds the position of Visiting Lecturer for the Masters in the Civil Engineering programme at the State University of Santa Catarina (UDESC), supervising and conducting research projects on urban resilience and lean construction. 

Prior to her role at the Open University, Carla held the position of Assistant Professor within the Department of Production and Systems Engineering at the State University of Santa Catarina (UDESC, Joinville, Brazil) from 2016 to 2021. She had also worked in other Brazilian universities (PUC, UNIP and UFSCar) from 2014 as a lecturer in Operations & SCM. 

Dr Pereira holds a B.Eng. (2008) degree in Production Engineering from the State University of Maringá (UEM / Brazil), and MSc. (2011) and DSc. (2014) degrees in Production Engineering from the Federal University of São Carlos (Brazil), with exchange studies at Cranfield University’s School of Management in the United Kingdom.

Research interests

Carla’s research interest covers different approaches in the supply chain management, such as risk, resilience, sustainability, food waste and surplus food redistribution. She is also interested in lean thinking (manufacturing, distribution, construction and healthcare). From 2016 to 2021, Carla coordinated a research group in supply chain (Núcleo de Estudos e Pesquisa em Supply Chain), and following her move to the United Kingdom, is now a sitting member of it. Some of the research projects conducted within this group include The Role of Sustainable Practices in Resilient Supply Chains; The Influence of KPIs in creating Resilience in Supply Chains; and The Application of Lean Tools on Process Improvement. 

Additionally, Dr. Pereira is part of several broad projects in conjunction with the Federal University of Sao Carlos (UFSCar) in resilience, food waste reduction and food recall (all of them from a supply chain perspective). These projects were financially supported by FAPESP (São Paulo Research Foundation). She is also working on a collaborative project between Polytechnique Montreal (Canada) and the Polytechnic University of Bari (Italy) in digital maturity and resilient strategies for operations.

Another key areas of her current research interest are: ‘resilient practices as an alternative to deal with surplus food for human consumption’ (potential future proposal for PhD students) and ‘lean and sustainable approaches in the construction sites’ (master students’ supervision).

She has published in key academic journals in the area of O&SCM, such as the Journal of Cleaner Production, the International Journal of Production Economics, Supply Chain Management: an International Journal, and the Journal of Industrial and Production Engineering. Her book in service supply chain was recently published by Palgrave Macmillan - Achieving Resilience in Service Supply Chains: The Role of Procurement | SpringerLink

Teaching interests

Carla's teaching experience in the O&SCM area is focused on different topics, such as project management, introduction to industrial engineering, project and plant design, production systems and lean manufacturing. She was also involved in teaching projects that aim to develop educational games to provide a more practical view of the theoretical concepts for the students. 

At the OU, She is currently teaching on:

• BB849 – Supply Chain Management (MBA)
• BXY230/330 – Work-based modules within the Chartered Manager Degree Apprenticeship (CMDA)

As a visiting lecturer in Brazil, she teaches on:

• How to prepare and submit a scientific paper
• Systematic Literature Review

External collaborations

- Federal University of Sao Carlos (UFSCar / Brazil) funded by FAPESP

- State University of Santa Catarina (UDESC / Brazil) funded by FAPESC

- Polytechnique Montreal (Canada) and the Polytechnic University of Bari (Italy)

- Queen’s University Besfast